Videos: Steele tweaks Barnicle over “you people”

posted at 11:36 am on December 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Imagine, if you will, that a conservative commentator had used the phrase “you people” with a member of the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss their position on health-care reform. Not to get all tu quoque on Mike Barnicle and Morning Joe, but liberals would not have been laughing off Michael Steele’s response. There would have been outrageous outrage erupting all over the blogosphere, and likely all over MS-NBC, with multiple replays and Chris Matthews opining yet again on the melanin content of Tea Party events. Steele obviously played this to make that very point:

But his exchange with Donny Deutsch got a little more testy:

It started with CNBC commentator Donny Deutsch, who pointedly asked Steele about the GOP’s criticism of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comments comparing opponents of health care reform to those who tried to block the abolition of slavery.

“Any great change throughout history, the naysayers say ‘it’s not time, it’s not time?’ So why is that not a relevant analogy?” Deutsch asked.

“I won’t even dignify that with a response,” Steele said. “Next question.”

Deutsch interjected to say that Reid was “comparing it to dramatic change,” and was not suggesting Republicans were equivalent to those who opposed emancipation.

“Ok, whatever,” Steele responded. “Whatever. Next question.”

“That’s a great response,” Deutsch shot back. “That’s an intelligent and brave response.”

“It is, as was your question,” Steele said.

A better response would be to compare it to Democratic outrage over the Nazi comparisons posed about Barack Obama, which came from the LaRouchies (and which were entirely inept). It’s so out of context to the history of real Naziism that it degrades the conversation into hopeless ad hominems, which is why Steele doesn’t bother responding substantively to Deutch’s attempt to mainstream the argument. It’s akin to Steele demanding that Deutsch explain in detail how Barack Obama isn’t really a crypto-Nazi.

Comments

What Deutsch meant to say was “Be a good n!993r and answer the question this white man asked you, boy!”

RhymesWithRight on December 9, 2009 at 1:50 PM

Good grief man!

The Race Card on December 9, 2009 at 6:01 PM

Just callin’ ’em like I see ’em. Given the liberal contempt and condescension towards anyone who dares disagree with them, it was clear that Donny was being intentionally insulting to a man who he sees as his inferior. And given the trebling of such contempt and condescension heaped upon any minority “uppity” enough to stray from the acceptable positions defined by white liberals like Donny, it didn’t take much reading between the lines to see what he really meant when he spoke in that manner to Michael Steele.

you’ll get dragged into this century eventually whether you like it or not

A perfect summary of how the left views human rights.

sandberg on December 9, 2009 at 3:33 PM

Amen. And a perfect encapsulation of how the left views “this century”: as something they, and they alone, get to control (how it’s gonna be defined). That takes some real hubris.

We are made to believe that “this century” is self-evidently one of windmill farms, catastrophic sea level rise (damn the evidence), transfer payments to third world nations and same-sex marriage. Given that the left is so busy trying to drag us all there, did they ever stop to think whether those things actually are “this century”?

you’ll get dragged into this century eventually whether you like it or not

More like you’ll get dragged back into the 20th century, with its world wars and communism, whether you like it or not. The leftist mentality is one of perpetual childhood, “Everything I learned in life, I learned in kindergarten.” And last stop, everyone off the bus. It is stagnation, cronyism, death.